Bingo & Memory Game to Learn Chinese (ages 3-99): Kingka

Bingo Game to Learn Chinese Words

Do my children LOVE to learn Chinese? No. But they do tolerate it. Especially after I switched them from a class to private lessons. They also are learning Spanish which they started first. Do my children LOVE to learn Spanish? Well…they do like it better than Chinese because, after 4 years, I managed to put together semi-private lessons with their friends adhering to very strict requirements:

— my oldest didn’t mind being paired with her friend a grade younger who has to be better at Spanish. Luckily, she is as she’s lived in Spain for 15 months and is fluent.

— my middle wants to be better than her friend. That was ok with her friend who actually LOVES to learn Spanish and has now completely caught up.

— my youngest just wants to play games but he must WIN all of them ALL THE TIME!

So, keeping my kids engaged in learning Chinese is a struggle. Games help!

The nice people at Kingka gave me their game to try out. I have a lovely Chinese tutor who my kids like a lot. She keeps them motivated by sticker charts that earn small prizes plus stickers for each lesson well done. She also gives them homework. I don’t speak Chinese (1-year Chinese school flunk out), so I had my tutor play Kingka with the kids. She really likes this game.

Even the Chief Editor of newbingosites.org said he uses it with his children. It’s Bingo at two levels. For those learning Chinese characters, you can use the bingo tiles with pictures, phonetic Chinese, plus the word in Spanish and French thrown in for good measure. Therefore the elephant card has a color photo of an elephant AND xiang, elefante, elephant, and elephant written around the edges of the pictures. (please forgive me as I can’t do all the accents on those words correctly). When you flip the tile over, the Chinese character for the elephant is on the back. Then you match this tile to the bingo card with… a photo of an elephant. There are 54 basic Chinese characters to master in this game.

If you get good, you can use the tiles with just the Chinese Character on them. There is a second set of tiles just for that. (We’re not there yet!).

Now, you can also play this game as a memory match game if you tire of the Bingo format. Pretty nifty!

This game won every award on the planet: Dr. Toy Best Product Winner for 2007, 2008 National Parenting Publications Award, 2007 Creative Child Magazine Award, Mom’s Choice Award, and iParenting 2007 Excellent Product Award. It really is a good product. It’s $24.29.

Will my kids play this on their own? I do not lie. No.

But they will once a week during their lesson and it makes for a fun lesson!

To purchase this game, please click on the image of the game.

If your kids are learning Chinese, please see my other post on Introducing Kids to Foreign Languages that has other products that we have tried out and liked. I also have a post from the NY Times on how schools are not teaching other languages but are keeping or adding Chinese to their curriculum.

To examine any of the items listed, please click on image of item.

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